


Sometimes (maybe more than some of the time)

by laurselig



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Growing Up, Jaskier | Dandelion Being Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, M/M, Mentions of miscarriage, My First Work in This Fandom, Other, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, bit of a character study, lots of feelings, mentions of sex between teenagers, nothing overly graphic but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25588972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurselig/pseuds/laurselig
Summary: Sometimes Jaskier is quiet.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion/Original Female Character(s), Jaskier | Dandelion/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Sometimes (maybe more than some of the time)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first step into writing for this fandom after reading far far too much (and my first posting on A03 ever...) It's a bit short & I keep putting off posting so I'm just jumping in. All comments welcome but please be nice! Please let me know what you think and if I've missed anything in the tags - I wasn't sure what to put. 
> 
> Title comes from Gerry Cinnamon's "Sometimes". Enjoy!

Sometimes Jaskier was quiet.

When he was 6 and his mother cried behind the unlatched door, his father a dark cloud of anger in the corner and the blood on the bedspread the last hint of his younger brother. His mother called him, her voice breaking. His father punched the wall. Jaskier breathed through the sound of sobbing and stayed silent.

When he was 14 and he kissed a girl for the first time, he remembers the soft feeling of her body in his hands, his hands which were clammy with nerves and he was sure he was leaving prints on her light pink dress. She was soft and her mouth was warm and he kissed her, pushing his tongue into her mouth before she pushed him away. She looked back more than once, willing him to call, to chase her, to pull her back and grab her waist and take her mouth once more. Jaskier rubbed his palms and held his tongue.

When he was 9, and his sister jumped the river and her foot slipped in the dark wet mud and she went under the water and he watched as she sank. He followed her into the water, pulling desperately at her limbs, struggling up the bank. Jaskier held his breath and prayed to Melitele as he held her too-cold - _not_ _dead not dead -_ weight.

When he was 12 and saw the bard that would change his life, the man who danced and sang and flirted his way through the revellers, spreading joy in his wake as the people clapped their hands and stamped their feet and held their friends and laughed. The bard led them through the evening, from the epic ballads to the sweet sonnets. Jaskier watched and he listened and his heart felt full with the sense of destiny plucked from the strings of a lute.

  
  


Sometimes, Jaskier was nervous.

When he was 13 and he told his sister late at night under the spell of darkness of his plans and dreams. He stared into the dark and talked to it, pretending she wasn't there, that she couldn't hear his soul being revealed. Jaskier lay in the dark and waited for her to respond with more than soft breathing. He tried to still the beating of his heart when she stood and left the room without a word, leaving behind the son of a Viscount who only wanted to be a bard.

When he was 15 and fucked a girl for the first time, her hips under his hands and her scent on his fingers and his tongue. He felt her warmth and wetness and she shivered in anticipation, hooded eyes looking up from under dark eyelashes. Jaskier clenched his fist and pulled her closer.

When he was 16 and could finally leave Lettenhove and leave behind an angry father and tear-stained mother and silent sister and he shook his father's hand and hugged his mother and his sister and picked up his bags and got in the coach. Jaskier leant his head back and closed his eyes and didn't open them again until his childhood was a distant blur on the horizon.

Sometimes Jaskier was happy.

When he was small, so very small, and his mother would lift him up and hold him in her arms and hugged him tight and Jaskier felt shelter and love and belonging. When his father would grip him under his arms and swing him up and spin him round and round until the world blurred and the only thing he could see was his smile. Jaskier would smell sunshine and hear his own laugh and even years later when his mother no longer lifted him up and his father no longer smiled he could still hear his own laughter when the sun shone.

When he was alone by the river that ran along his family estate and would spend hours lying on the grass amount the daisies and the buttercups and the dandelions and the sun would shine and Jaskier would hear his own childish laughter ringing in his ears and he would close his eyes and let the sun warm his face and pretend he was just another daisy or buttercup or dandelion. Jaskier would close his eyes and hum under his breath and just for a second, just one more minute, he would leave behind Julian Pankratz and sink deeper into the grassy banks of the river.

When he reached Oxenfurt and found his place - his real place - shirking the duties his father had outlined for him in favour of taverns and pubs and women and men and drink and dance and most of all song. Jaskier learnt his way around the body of a lute and of women and men and he learned how to sing. He learned how to hold an audience in the cadence of his voice and the skill of his hands and the look in his eye. Jaskier breathed in anticipation and sang out love and death and excitement and _life_. 

Yet more times, Jaskier was loud.

When he was 17 and in Oxenfurt with his fellow students and the buzzing thriving life surrounding him. Jaskier walked through the streets and fell in love with the city, smiling and laughing and shedding his past - _call me Jaskier, not Julian -_ and building his future with his voice.

When he argued in class and raised his increasingly musical, increasingly flamboyant voice and his fellow students laughed and even the teachers smiled behind large books and Jaskier felt warmth in his chest like a sun trapped there. He twirled and he peacocked and he embraced the laughter and the light.

When Valdo Marx - _fucking Valdo Marx_ \- challenged him to perform and he stood on the table and he sang and he stamped and he clapped and the students sang and stamped and clapped and no longer was he the boy but - _finally_ \- he was the bard. Jaskier cheered and danced and filled his lungs with air as he sang the next song.

When he tumbled into bed with his friends and they would kiss and talk and touch and feel and Jaskier would moan and make them moan until the crescendo of music was nothing compared to the crescendo of their coupling. He would shake beds and walls and rafters and lose himself in the heady feeling of being wanted. Jaskier let his body be kissed and touched and felt and he flung his head back and shouted as he came.

Sometimes Jaskier was brazen.

When he played his lute and sang the bawdy songs and moved through the crowd, so suggestive and available. When he finished his set and the eyes of the young man were still meeting his across the room with the heat and anticipation of all potential lovers. Jaskier crossed the room and stood in front of the young man and caressed his throat, whispering in his ear - so dirty, so good - and he kissed the dark column of the young man's neck and grabbed his hand and his arse and suddenly they were outside in the cool air and that throat was stretched in ecstasy as they fumbled and rutted like animals. Jaskier grabbed the boy's mouth and grinned into his kiss.

When his father banged and shouted on the door of his university room - _I'm not paying for you to fuck about and play a fucking lute Julian_ \- and Jaskier grabbed his lute and dangled out the window, shrieking and drawing as much attention as possible. His father burst through the door and stared, shocked, from the window as Jaskier paraded across the low rooftops of Oxenfurt Academy and he sang his own lament at the follies of old men and the beauty of the city and his decision to leave. Jaskier sang as loud as he could as he marched out, a Pied Piper leading all who followed along the streets, into the pubs and on through the night. His father stood in the door, silent, and Jaskier winked and sang on the tabletops and the crowd cheered and for years afterwards people would remember the wild young bard and the revelry that followed.

  
So there at 18 he needed to leave Oxenfurt - _and that was entirely his choice no question about it -_ Jaskier needed to see the world like a thirst that couldn't be quenched and he took his lute and he wandered through the Continent, across the mountains and he saw an impossibly large man in Posada who sat in a corner to make the conspicuous inconspicuous and Jaskier's muse _sang._

So he stood in front of him and talked to distract from the increasingly irritable locals in the hopes that this man, this Witcher - _no, Butcher_ \- would provide some interest, that he would help him see. And he looked into the cat yellow eyes and the expressionless face and thought "yes."

Jaskier ran after him and shouted until his Destiny couldn't ignore him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I am thinking of extending this and building more plot etc in - I have a few ideas rattling about so let me know what you think 😊


End file.
